Increasing numbers of out-of-state women coming to Illinois to abort even as overall number of abortions drops

Stories about the abortion industry’s insatiable appetite for more dead babies often come in twos and threes. On Monday we reported about how Planned Parenthood’s stealthily opened its 17th “health center” in Illinois, not bothering to inform the local mayor (who is personally sympathetic) that it was opening an 11,470-square-foot, single-story brick building in Flossmoor, in south suburban Cook County 29 miles from Chicago, which is expected to “provide services to about 1,200 patients annually,” according to Julie Lynn, Planned Parenthood of Illinois manager of external affairs.

On Tuesday the Chicago Tribune reported that although the overall number of abortions has dropped in Illinois (from 39,856 in 2015 to 38,382 in 2016), there was a noticeable upsurge in out-of-state women coming in to abort (from 3,210 in 2015 to 4,543 women who crossed the state border to abort in 2016).

The common lament from abortionists and abortion insiders (including the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri who came to Illinois to abort) is the pro-life behavior of neighboring states. “Illinois is surrounded by states with restrictive barriers that make it very difficult for patients to get the care they need,” Lynn lamented to the Tribune’s Angie Leventis Lourgos.

What else, besides passage of pro-life laws, might explain Planned Parenthood building its newest megaclinic In Illinois? As NRL News Today reported in September, Illinois’s pro-abortion Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the highly controversial HB 40 into law. The Chicago Tribune summarized the bill’s reach and impact:

The new law expands taxpayer-subsidized abortions for women covered by Medicaid and state employee insurance. The state already covers abortions in cases of rape, incest and when there is a threat to the health and life of the mother. The law expands the Medicaid coverage beyond those limited cases.

Thus, there’s more money available to be made by the largest abortion provider in the United States. This is perhaps why reporter W.J. Kennedy observed, “Even higher numbers are expected when the [Illinois Department of Public Health] releases its 2017 figures.”

Tucked away in the Tribune story is one other ominous note: there may have been a lot more out-of-state women who came into Illinois in 2015 and 2016 to abort than officially reported:

In a relatively large number of cases — 1,176 in 2016 and 2,148 in 2015 — it’s unclear whether the patient was from in state or out of state because that was marked unknown.

The post Increasing numbers of out-of-state women coming to Illinois to abort even as overall number of abortions drops appeared first on NRL News Today.